Ad Campaigns
Kurkure’s new campaign with Akshay Kumar adds a quirky twist to a heist
Mumbai: Starting the year with a ‘masaledaar’ twist, Kurkure has unveiled a film featuring Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar and actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu.
This film is a part of the larger ‘Ab Laga Masala’ campaign that captures Kurkure as a ‘chatpata’ anytime snack that adds an element of ‘masti’ and quirkiness to the daily lives of its consumers. In its two-decade-long journey, the Indian snack brand Kurkure has launched several innovative product formats and flavour profiles across collet, puffed, and namkeens – disrupting not only the domestic but also the international markets with its ‘masaledaar’ offerings and quirky storytelling.
In the film, Akshay Kumar plays a thief who breaks into Samantha’s house in the middle of the night and gets distracted when he sees a packet of Kurkure kept in the kitchen cabinet. Just as he is about to open the packet, Samantha and her family catch him red-handed and snatch the pack from his hands to eat Kurkure themselves, then offering him as well. Forgetting his initial intention to rob the house and with no fear of being caught, Akshay, who is already eager to munch on the snack, readily obliges. Needless to say, Kurkure’s ‘masaledaar’ flavour sends Akshay into a ‘maha-flavourful’ bliss, until reality hits and greets him with the sound of police sirens on the way to the house.
“Be it for my movies or my ads, I’ve always strived to create extraordinary moments for my fans, and Kurkure has been perfect at bringing out the quirky yet extraordinary side of me. It’s always fun to play an entertaining character that can transform dull moments into memorable ones with a ‘masaledaar’ kick,” said Kumar.
PepsiCo India associate director – brand marketing Kurkure, Neha Prasad said, “Kurkure has a special place in the heart of Indian consumers with its iconic flavour and ‘tedha’ persona. The brand has the ability to portray unconventional yet relatable modern Indian family scenarios through its quirky, over-the-top storytelling that transforms any boring moment with family and friends into an entertaining one. Through this film, we want to intensify the brand love and celebrate the iconic flavour of India’s favourite ‘masaledaar’ snack.”
Expressing her thoughts on the campaign, Wunderman Thompson senior VP Ritu Nakra said, “Daily life can be such a routine and boring when there is no ‘masaledar’ twist… but with Kurkure Masala Munch, the ‘masala’ hit in each collet unleashes full-on drama in every situation. Watch how the spicey tangy and ‘chatpata’ flavours ka hit make Akshay a mast chor in the new ad campaign for the brand.”
NATIONAL: Amazon Ads has laid out a sharply tech-led vision for the advertising industry in 2026, arguing that artificial intelligence, streaming TV and creator partnerships will combine to turn brand building into a more precise, performance-driven business.
At the heart of the shift, the company says, is the fusion of AI with Amazon’s vast trove of shopping, browsing and streaming signals, allowing advertisers to move beyond blunt reach metrics to campaigns designed around real customer behaviour.
“The future of advertising is not about reaching more people, but the right people with messages that resonate,” said Amazon Ads India head and vice president Girish Prabhu. “By combining AI with deep customer insights, we help brands move from broadcasting campaigns to having meaningful conversations wherever audiences spend their time.”
One of the biggest changes, according to Amazon Ads, will be the collapse of the wall between media planning and creative development. Retail media, powered by first-party data, is increasingly shaping everything from brand discovery to final purchase, pushing marketers to design campaigns around audience insight rather than internal instinct.
AI is also moving from a support tool to a creative engine. Agentic AI, which automates and accelerates production, is expected to make high-quality creative accessible even to small businesses, compressing weeks of work into hours and giving challengers the ability to compete with larger brands on speed and scale.
Behind the scenes, AI-driven analytics will take on a bigger role in campaign optimisation, identifying patterns, spotting opportunities and recommending actions that would previously have required teams of analysts.
Streaming TV is another big battleground. With India’s video streaming audience now above 600 million and connected TV users at 129.2 million in 2025, advertisers are set to treat streaming not just as a branding channel but as a performance engine, measured increasingly by sales, sign-ups and bookings rather than just reach.
Finally, Amazon Ads sees creators and contextual advertising reshaping how brands tell stories. Creators will act less like influencers and more like long-term partners, while scene-aware ads on streaming platforms will allow brands to insert hyper-relevant offers into the flow of what viewers are watching.
Taken together, Amazon Ads argues, these shifts mark a move towards advertising that is both more human and more measurable, where AI handles the complexity, and creativity does the persuading.
